Q-Tip Club

In my 20's I attended quite a few weddings. Why not, everyone gets married then. A few of the weddings were boring and other raucous affairs where fistfights could break during the reception. Most were S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) of the Catholic priest and the party afterwards at a hotel. I was a one time Best Man but most I attended I was part of the pack of single guys who sat 14 rows back in the church, with the others spying on the unmarried girls in their best dresses.

I could dress up dapper then too! I had three suits to choose from and preferred a European cut one (two slits in the back, not just the one). Though most of my blue collar friends looked upon it as “weird.” Then again, they thought that crossing the border of Pawtucket meant you'd be sucked into a black hole too. What the fuck did they know about tailors outside of this city?

One of the last weddings I went to, I had a camel hair coat. I just put it over a black polo and wore my best, non-stained/torn jeans with a pair of well stretched, comfy shoes. As I was was walking through the kitchen on my way out the door, my brother lambastes me on the choice.

In his dripping, acidic tone...”You're going to the wedding...like that!?”

I tell him, “Sure...why not?”

“Jeans? You're wearing jeans?” he goes on.

I finally shut him up by saying, “Look, I'm attending a wedding that's going to be mainly attended by plumbers, electricians and welders...if they show up in clean work clothes...it's a win for them!”

I was right.

All the other guys who were at the wedding were either dressed in their least worst clothing, or they had been to Sears a couple of days before and bought the ubiquitous blue suit that hung on them like cardboard. Add to that they were all very uncomfortable in them as they were scared shitless to ruin the look. They stood around like statues.

That was then.

Now..I attend funerals.

Whoa...how did I get so old?

I came back from a wake not too long ago, an Uncle who made it to 81. Not a bad run. What took me for a loop was that now, I'm part of that damn Q-Tip club that goes to these things and schmoozes with the other attendees. When you go to wakes of people who were in their 80's, the attendees tend to be closer in age to the one being sent off vs. any 20 something going to a wedding. Add to this the Irish trait of keeping our hair but it turns snow white at 40. I was in the funeral home and noticing all the white heads walking around...and realizing I was one of them. I fit right in.

But...but....I'm supposed to be young! I was hip, “with it” and cool in the late '70's! Shit..the late 70's was damn near 40 years ago! I swear, for us Old Timers, the past ain't that far back..is it? Well, it feels like it wasn't. I can reach back and access it easily. Kids born in 1996 reach back to that time on Google photos and see black and white. That and ugly Disco clothing. That time has as about much meaning to them as the decade of the 50's has to me. It's a rumor!

Q-Tip! Q-Tip! I now belong! Arrrggh! Am I supposed to get a card or something? Other than the AARP one they already sent me? The Bastard Fenian Order of White Haired Irish Males card?

Age creeps. It always does. Slowly and surely. A time not too long ago I was at The Met, a smaller venue for bands and I was eavesdropping on a conversation of some young men next to us. They were bemoaning the fact that 1 AM would soon arrive. They all were hot fired to keep partying as long as they hoofed it down to Providence as fast as they could. My quiet reaction was averse to all that. Cover charges? $7 cans of Budweiser? Being charged to park? Driving home bleary eyed, probably over-the-limit on booze but barely so as I can't drink like I used too...and worrying about paying a lawyer to get me out of a DUI? Oh and this, totally not fitting in with that crowd.

Nope. I prefer now to make it to my comfy bed, comfy chair, comfy thermostat and comfy sweat pants and settle in. It's doubly more perfect now since winter has come.

I've arrived. “Welcome...the Q-Tip section is over here...Sir.”

Is it all that bad really? No..I exaggerate all this but only to make a point. As a Boomer, I belong to that rallying cry of “Rock 'n' Roll Can Never Die.” Perhaps so, but it does get older, grayer and slower.

I've yet to make that silly “foolish ol' goat” mistake so many men of age make. They, for one last time, really fuck things up by trying to be 20 again. Hell, why not? You should get that one final chance at it and blow it as all of them do. There will be a woman you know, equal in age, ready to condemn you for even trying. Women still know more then men when it comes to stuff like this.

I'll get there one day. Meanwhile, it looks like I'll attend funerals not for “payin' respects an' all” but for the social outlet it provides.

Jesus..did I just say that? Next it will be Doan's Backache pills and a loaf of bread for the ducks by the pond. “Doans,” shit...that's proof I'm my age.